Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is a video game developed and published by Ubisoft. It was released on December 1, 2005 in North America for the Xbox, PC, PlayStation 2, and the Nintendo GameCube. It was released for PlayStation Portable (PSP) and the Wii, under the title Prince of Persia: Rival Swords with the Wii version utilizing the motion-sensing functionality of its controller. Following Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, The Two Thrones is the third and final game in the Sands of Time trilogy, timeline-wise. Another game was later released, but it's events occurred between the first and second games. In 2010 and 2011 all Sands of Time games (except The Forgotten Sands) were released on the PS3 and PlayStation Network. ' Plot' Set in 1007 AD (roughly at the beginning of the year (not mentioned)). Returning from the Island of Time , the Prince who is 26 years old in this and his companion Kaileena, the Empress of Time, come to Babylon in Persia. The Prince throws away the Medallion, thinking that he won't be needing it. He promises Kaileena that she will be safe in his home, but when they arrive, they find the city ravaged by unknown forces. When their ship is then destroyed and they are thrown overboard, Kaileena is captured. The Prince follows her capturers to the palace and then sees the Vizier, who is resurrected as a result of the Prince meddling on the Island of Time. He holds Kaileena prisoner. The Prince tries to free her but is stopped in his tracks by a Daggertail thrown by one of the Vizier's Generals, Mahasti, on his left arm. The Vizier then impales Kaileena with the Dagger of Time, unleashing the Sands of Time, and stabs himself, becoming Zurvan, the God of Time. The Sands then mutate everyone in the vicinity. The Prince escapes and grabs the Dagger to stop himself from completely turning into a sand monster. Unfortunately, a dark personality has been awakened inside the Prince, personified as a bitter, cynical voice inside his head. The Dark Prince, as he's called, advises and quarrels with the Prince throughout his journey through the ruined city. Unexpectedly, the Prince's body turns into a darker shape, which could only dispel on contact of water, which is the Dark Prince in his physical form. When the Prince changes, he still has control over his body. He is given use of the Daggertail imbued into his arm, but every transformation brings the Dark Prince closer to control of his body. The Prince soon encounters Farah, who was enslaved by the Vizier after he kills her father and took control of his kingdom. Because of his actions during Warrior Within, The Prince and Farah's meeting at the end of The Sands of Time never happened and she no longer knows him. She is at first confused and suspicious as to how he knows her name, but they agree to work together and her trust grows as the game progresses. The Prince inspires the populace, lead by the Old Man, to attack the Vizier's armies while he and Farah sneak inside the palace. To both of their surprise, Zurvan appears and captures Farah, intending to make her his queen with a few physical - and perhaps mental - changes. He sends the Prince down into the Ancestor's Well, where he finds his father's body. The Dark Prince mocks him and his feelings for Farah, but the Prince finally accepts his mistakes and takes up his father's sword, purging his body of the Dark Prince for what the Prince thinks is forever. The Prince does not turn into the Dark Prince again. (However, for game-play reasons, this is because he would lose his father's sword as a secondary weapon if he turned into the Dark Prince again, as turning into the Dark Prince loses your current secondary weapon.) At the top of a tower (named the 'Terrace' in the game), the Prince confronts Zurvan in a titanic battle. He stabs him in the heart, killing him and freeing Kaileena. All around the city, the Sands collect at the top of the tower, destroying Zurvan's army. Kaileena appears in sand form and takes the dagger to another world where no one would ever abuse its power again. Though all seems won, the Dark Prince appears, pulling the Prince into a Mental Realm where he taunts his good half. Farah urges him to stop fighting his other half and to follow her out of the Mental Realm, leaving the Dark Prince defeated. He then wakes up in the real world, where Farah asks how he really knew her name. The Prince then tells her his tale, starting with the first line from The Sands of Time, taking the plot into full circle. Rival Swords Expanded Plot The Wii version of Rival Swords contains an expanded plot, but with much of the same gameplay. In The Two Thrones (and the PSP version of Rival Swords) the player gains a new ability, a sandtank, or sand credits when he or she stabs the dagger into the sandgate. In Rival Swords, the player is transported into the sandgate itself. In three certain sandgates, the Prince will have to strike a statue of the Vizier. Alternate Plot Seen at E3 When the first trailer for the at-the-time unnamed Prince of Persia 3, it presented a much darker tone, similar to the one in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Also shown within this trailer was a slightly altered plot where, Kaileena, instead of being killed by the Vizier, unleashes the Sands of Time by killing herself in order to save the Prince. Also, the Dark Prince had a different appearance, one which showed more likeness to the original Prince, the Amulet of Time was still present on the Prince, a scene where the Dark Prince is fighting Farah, and several other scenes that did not appear in the game were shown in the trailer. It is obvious that at some point Ubisoft changed their minds on how they wanted to take the direction of the game. 'Characters' *The Prince - back from the Island of Time, he was surprised to see the destruction of Persia's capital city, Babylon. *The Vizier - he's mean, he's old and he's back again and in true villain fashion, he killed Kaileena and turned to Zurvan, the God of Time. *Farah - the exotic and feisty Indian princess is back with her bow and arrow and she is still loved and quarelled by the Prince like when they met back in Azad. *The Dark Prince - the dark alter-ego of the Prince comes to life, he is the voice of the dark side of the Prince, he wants complete control of the Prince's body, he hates Farah. *Kaileena - even though she knows that the Prince is still in love with Farah, the Prince still tries to save her from the Vizier but fails so she dies. *Klompa - one of the Vizier's general, he was affected by the sands. *Mahasti - another general of the Vizier, she was the one who embeded the Daggertail to the Prince's arm and the only female boss. *Axe and Sword - the twin generals of the Vizier. *The Old Man - mentor to the Prince. 'Gameplay' The Prince's acrobatic skills have improved. He is now able to launch himself off walls at 45 degree angles at strategically placed vertical shutters, slide down chutes, and balance on swinging poles, among other things. While in Warrior Within the player fights with a sword, in the Two Thrones, much like The Sands of Time, the player fights with the Dagger of Time (but later in game he finds his father's sword,that's show to be a formidable weapon). As a result the combat is a lot less bloody as the dagger is too short to cut off the heads of his opponents or slice them in half, unless they are weakened first, or attacked in a Speed Kill: this uses the re-designed stealth system. Where's in the Warrior Within, stealth wasn't an actual gameplay feature but merely an occasional occurrence, stealth can be used excessively in the new game in lieu of normal fighting. Instead of merely being able to do more damage when striking without being seen,'' The Two Thrones'' uses a Speed Kill system. The system is a lot like the system used in the God of War for boss battles. (See Speed Kill page for more information.) Development and Production The developers of The Two Thrones stated that they were aiming to make the game an equal blend of Ubisoft's two previous Prince of Persia titles. The first game, The Sands of Time, was relatively light in mood, while the second, Warrior Within, was significantly more dark and grim. Yuri Lowenthal was confirmed to reprise his role as the voice actor for the Prince. Yuri was also the voice actor for the Prince in The Sands of Time, and later went on to voicing the Prince in the ''Forgotten Sands''. The Dark Prince was voiced by Rick Miller. Stuart Chatwood and Inon Zur, the composers from Warrior Within, both returned to compose the game's score, which has been described as "having Persian influences, but being much more epic than The Sands of Time".' Many official videos were released involving humor, such as the bloopers of the mechanics (in a pre-rendered format) and "real-life" training. 'Criticism and Software Bugs' An apparent software bug in ''Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is the inability to invert the y-axis of up-down movement in the game's navigational view for players choosing to use a mouse as an input device. A setting in the game is included to do so, but does not have the desired effect. The developers have also decided to use the Starforce drivers as its copy prevention system, for which they have received some criticism. However, later versions of the game, including a special edition which includes the entire trilogy, have been released without Starforce. In Other Media 'Penny Arcade Comic' Penny Arcade has created a comic based on Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. You can find the eight-page comic here: http://penny-arcade.com/presents/page/prince-of-persia-the-two-thrones-page-1 NBC drama 'Life' The game was featured in an episode of the NBC drama series Life, starring Damien Lewis, where part of the episode centered around having to reach Level 10 in the Xbox version of the game in order to crack a clue in a kidnapping case. NBC seems to be suppressing references to the episode, "A Civil War." es:Prince of Persia: Las Dos Coronas Category:Games Category:Sands of Time Canon Category:Two Thrones